There has been no service on the Kangra Valley railway line, one of the oldest in North India, since September 9 when one of its main bridges got damaged by debris from a road bridge which got washed away.

For some time, the Kangra Valley line, one of the four mountain railway tracks in the country, has been struggling to save itself from illegal mining. Railway engineers said the entire historic rail line, initially built for a hydro electric line in 1929, was now in a shambles. “The damage to the .5-km Chakka Bridge is just the beginning. Other bridges on the line too have their foundations exposed to the river due to the illegal mining,” said a senior engineer at Rail Bhavan.

With Kangra valley being touted as the next big tourist destination in Himachal Pradesh, the timing could not have been worse. “The closure of the line has also hit the economy along the 164-km route as locals were dependant on this line,” said Northern Railway spokesperson Rajiv Saxena.

Unlike its more famous counterparts—the Shimla, Darjeeling and Nilgiri lines—the Kangra Railways is unique because it was built following the natural contours of the mountains. This was one of the reasons why the budget of the project doubled from the estimated Rs 134 lakh to Rs 296 lakh in 1929.